Overseas Summer School in South Korea

Through the Overseas Summer School I attended in South Korea during July 2017, I experienced many new things that I have never tried before as well as came to understand South Korea better. This experience allowed me to gain global perspectives about how different countries have unique cultures and how their societies function differently as compared to Singapore.

The courses I enrolled in Hanyang University were Korean Language 1 (Beginning) and Korean Cinema and Modernization. These allowed me to understand South Korea's language and culture better as learning how to read, write, and speak the Korean language helped me to converse with the locals and navigate around in Korea. Moreover, Korean Cinema and Modernization taught me how to analyse movies further such as how the themes, portrayal of scenes in the movies and even the director's intentions relate back to real history events that took place in Korea. Both courses were highly intriguing as I learnt more about Korea's history, culture, values and language better which has shaped modern-day South Korea. Below shows my official Overseas Summer School academic transcript from Hanyang University.

It was my first time going to Korea, a foreign country independently without school or parents' supervision. Thus, I learnt how to be independent, getting a little taste of how Singaporean students studying in foreign country feel. There were some times where I missed Singapore and felt homesick, especially when I contacted my family or craved for Singaporean food which is very rare and almost non-existent in Korea.

However, going to Korea for Overseas Summer School was still a very fun and enjoyable experience for me. The locals there were extremely nice and friendly to us despite the lack of communication between each other. One example is that there was a time when my friends and I got lost while traveling to a tourist destination, Pocheon Valley. One of the locals approached us first and asked us in Korean where we were going and we managed to let him know despite the language barrier. He offered to drive us there in his own car for free as he said that the next bus would only arrive in 1 hour and it was just a short drive ahead. Thus, we took up on his offer and he drove us to our destination. It was extremely nice of him since he did it just to help us out and we thanked him profusely.

The food, the skincare and beauty products were also much cheaper as compared to Singapore. Different stores of the same brand have different promotions and discounts offered on their products. Along the streets of Myeongdong, there would be mascots as well as store representatives in charge of bringing customers into the respective stores. However, I noticed that some parts of Seoul is not as well developed as Singapore. There were still many bumps in the footpaths as well as a lack of amenities (such as dustbins and restrooms) along some shopping streets. However, Singapore can also learn from Korea in some ways. One such way is the way in which Korea promotes recycling to its residents and how they recycle on a daily basis.

Hence, I learnt how different Korea was as compared to Singapore, and I really enjoyed my Overseas Summer School experience at Hanyang University.